LANcom Technology Blog

Microsoft suggests some simple steps to ensure that your password security is the best it can be. Here’s a quick summery.

1. Don’t be complacent –Attacks do happen. There are three different ways hackers can get your password: brute force, dictionary attacks, and social engineering.

   Brute force involves using a program that tries every possible combination of letters numbers and keyboard characters to guess your password. A good password, one using eight characters in a combination of upper and lowercase letters as well as numbers and keyboard characters, can take around two years to crack.

   Dictionary attacks use a custom dictionary filled with names, words and number combinations to quickly crack simple passwords like ‘ilovemydog’ or ‘123456′.

   Social engineering attacks occur when a person solicits a password from an authorised user. For example those hackers who send out a large number of emails pretending to be a person’s bank and ask users to in put there password are using a social engineering attack.

2. Know what makes a bad password –

   -Do not use only letters or only numbers

   -Do not use a persons or pets name

   -Do not use phone numbers, birth dates or any other personal number.

   -Do not use the same word as your login

   -Do not use word’s that can be found in a dictionary

   -Never leave it blank

3. Get proficient at creating good passwords – a password should be easy to remember but difficult to guess. One way of creating a good password is to replace letters with numbers or characters. In the case of the example used above ‘ilovemydog’ can become 1l0ve^^yd0g. It should be at least eight characters in length and have a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and keyboard characters
4. Safeguard your password – Do not write it down. Instead if you are worried about forgetting it: use it straight away, log in and out several times through the day, and never change your password on a Friday or before a holiday. If for some reason you have to give your password out to someone else change it again as soon as possible.
5. Change your password often – Microsoft recommends changing your passwords every 30-90 days.

The full version of this article is available here.